Don't EVER ask Mr. E about the time when we were newly married and visiting New Orleans. We were having breakfast at a little coffee & beignet place, and I just could not work out in my head how to pronouce the coffee. Cafe au lait. Cafe au lait. I didn't want my new husband to know that I was unsophisticated, so I didn't ask him. The waiter came to our table and I ordered...

Cafe O' LOT. Yeah.
Did I mention Mr. E took French in high school? He laughed. I gorged myself on beignets.

Spanish, on the other hand, oh...I work on it. EVERY DAY I work on my "easy breezy" ala the Sophia Vergara CoverGirl commercial. We look really similar, so it comes pretty naturally.

*cough*

Back to faux bois. Obsessed.

I found this stamp at Michaels and knew it was meant for cookies. There's a little controversy brewing in the cookie world about whether stamps are safe for cookie decorating. Here's my take. I washed the stamp. I pressed it into fondant for about 5 seconds. I'm not eating THE STAMP. If it scares you, place a piece of cling wrap between the stamp and fondant. The image just won't be as sharp.

Roll the fondant on a surface coated with corn starch. (Roll it thin, mine is a bit thick.) Use the cookie cutter to cut the fondant, and slice off the bow section.

Brush the square part of the cookie with corn syrup. Place on the cut fondant and press lightly to adhere.

Combine food coloring with vodka. No real measurements here...the vodka will help the food coloring dry and the alcohol will evaporate.

Press the clean stamp into the fondant. Press firmly and be sure to apply pressure up and down and side to side to imprint across the entire cookie.

Dip the paintbrushes into the food coloring mixture and blot on a paper towel. "Paint" the indentations made by the stamp.

{Note: why I didn't just paint the stamp, I'll never know. It didn't occur to me until I was in bed that night. Try it.}

Use a #2 tip to outline the bow with royal icing.

Thin the icing with water, a bit at a time,
stirring with a silicone spatula, until it is the consistency of a
thick syrup. You'll want to drop a "ribbon" of icing back into the bowl
and have it disappear in a count of "one thousand one, one thousand
two." Four is too thick, one is too thin. Count of 2-3 is good. Cover
with a damp dishcloth and let sit for several minutes.

Stir gently with a silicone spatula to pop and large air bubbles that have formed. Pour into a squeeze bottle.

Fill in the outline with the thinned
flood icing, using a toothpick to guide to the edges and to pop large
air bubbles.

If desired, go back over the bow with the piping icing to add detail. The wet flood icing needs to dry uncovered 6-8 hours or overnight.

Don't you love it in white, too? You can really see the texture of the fondant.

It reminds me of a cable knit sweater. Hmm...anyone have a cable knit stamp?

I could totally see these as a circle or square cookie with a really pretty star tip border. So, they're not just for Christmas packages!

Faux Bois...say it today. It's fun.

Oh! If you are a faux bois-lover, take a gander at Mandi's fabulous painted faux bois FLOOR!!! I just love her style and fearlessness when it comes to decorating!

Very pretty! I actually live in Belgium and am 2 hours from Paris and they speak French here. I have not bothered to learn it because I have a southern twang and no matter how I talk or what I say I always get the head tilt lol.

Excuse me but you're going to have to CALL ME ASAP and pronounce FAUX-BOIS.I can't even speak English much less French or Spanish!When Melly and I were on our California Coast holiday together we made our way down to Southern California where we were stayingin the quaint little upscale village of La Jolla. Please.Please don't tell anyone I was in a sophisticated, upscale, affluent area of California pronouncing La Jolla {la-hoy-e} / {la-JOE-la}!!!!!!!!!Yes!I was that BLONDE!Anyways. Back to these cookies!Coolest thing ever that you used a stamp. I would have never ever thought not to eat fondant that had been pressed with a stamp.But then again, I eat SNOW and RAW eggs in homemade Snow Ice Cream.Also. I had no idea fondant came in sheets. Or did you make that fondant?I need to come to your house for a week and just watch everything you do.Okay. I'm totally delirious. It's 2:00 a.m. and G just got in from Alaska!That's why I'm up so late.Please excuse how crazy and random this comment sounds.Going to bed now!Love these cookies!xo

There's so much about this post that I love! From your phonetic spelling 'foh bwah', to Ooo La La Sasson, to using the GOOD Tito's vodka, to settling the stamp controversy....NOT TO MENTION how cute the cookies are, especially in all white!

You amaze me. That you would see this faux bois stamp and immediately think it would make a great cookie and look what you did! It made a wonderful cookie, you made a wonderful cookie.This is the first post I've read today and you made me laugh. Love getting my day off to a good start :)

This is such a darling and creative idea. I wonder if I could do this on my gingerbread dough instead of fondant ? It sounds tedious though to paint it. Is it - does it take a long time for each cookie?

Love this idea. It never occurred to me to use a stamp. Very creative!

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Those are beautiful! I live in a city that was originally called Le Bois but now goes by the easier to pronounce name of Boise. Although people still butcher it by calling it Boy-zee instead of Boy-see.

The faux bois is brilliant. Just to clarify about the safety in using your stamps with fondant - it's not the stamp itself that is the problem. The rubber can be washed and be fine so long as you designate it for food only. The problem comes with the wood block. Wood tends to harbor nasty little bacteria. If you remove the rubber part from the wood block and mount the rubber image to an acrylic block, you're in like flint. Thought you would want to know.

Faux sounds exactly like Foe in englishBois is a bit harder... = B'wah is probably the closest as I could come to explaining in in words. Your mouth should end up open at the end when you pronounce it :)

Your cookies are really adorables. But, just for your information, I'm french and "Ooo-la-la Sasson" is a nonsense. It simply don't exist in French language ^^I don't know why americans are obsessed with "olala" because nobody is using it (exept maybe, foreigners speaking french) and sasson... I really don't know what that mean :)

For café au lait, you can prononce it "cafay oh lei".

By the way, I would love to try one of your receipe on day but I don't have many time for cooking. Congrats for your creative cookies.

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